Connectivism

Connectivism is a hypothesis of learning which emphasizes the role of social and cultural context. Connectivism is often associated with and proposes a perspective similar to Vygotsky's 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD), an idea later transposed into Engeström's (2001) Activity theory . [1] The relationship between work experience, learning, and knowledge, as expressed in the concept of ‘connectivity, is central to connectivism, motivating the theory's name. [2] It is somewhat similar to Bandura's Social Learning Theory that proposes that people learn through contact. The phrase "a learning theory for the digital age" [3] indicates the emphasis that connectivism gives to technology's effect on how people live, communicate and learn. Contents [ hide ]  1 Nodes and links o 1.1 Principles  2 Teaching methods  3 History  4 Criticisms  5 See also  6 References  7 External links Nodes and links [ edit ] The central aspect of connectivism is the metaphor of a network with nodes and connections. [4] In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node such as an organization, information, data, feelings, and images. Connectivism sees learning as the process of creating connections and expanding or increasing network complexity. Not all connections are of equal strength. The idea of organisations as cognitive systems where knowledge is distributed across nodes originated from the Perceptron , and is directly borrowed from Connectionism , "a paradigm in